Category Archives: Old Fruit

Old Fruit

Old Fruit 11th July 2025

The Magpie Arc – Autumn Leaves

In anticipation of this weekends Ely Folk Festival, which will be reviewed next week on this site, here are a few anticipated highlights from the line-up over the coming three days. The Magpie Arc are a cross-border folk supergroup featuring Nancy Kerr, Findlay Napier, Tom. A Wright, Alex Hunter and one of the folk movements all time legendary guitarists Martin Simpson (and how great is it to find him playing electric guitar in a group environment?). All I will say is that a band with such pedigree in its line-up winning favourable comparisons to Fairport Conventions ‘Liege & Lief’, after their ‘Glamour In The Grey’ debut album, has got to be worth some time and attention; I shall be watching and listening with interest.

Danny & The Champions Of The World – Sooner Or Later

Heading up an evening of Americana will be this wonderful collective, formed in 2007 after the break up of the band Grand Drive. They are based in London and led by singer-songwriter Danny George Wilson who presides over performances and writing that sail pleasingly close to the soulful and rousing spirits of Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison. Not only that but their live sets are pretty damn life affirming and committed too so this promises to be a great one.

Fred’s House – Gaslight

One of the standouts among the many interesting local Cambridge acts performing this weekend are Fred’s House. They were formed in 2010 and their numerous releases have seen a gradual shift away from folk-rock origins towards a more pop-friendly sound leading to favourable comparisons to the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Crosby Stills & Nash. As this clip proves, these are likenesses that the band are more than capable of meeting head on, grabbing by the ears and shaking down into an enticing, groove friendly, melodic, song driven cocktail entirely of their own making.

Elly Tree – The Minotaur

Generously sprinkled among the more attention grabbing, rhythm and electricity pumping acts are plenty of traditional acoustic guitar and voice purveyors such as Elly Tree. It is important too that this side of a folk festival is not lost, this is where the roots of it all are found and, personally, I love those summer afternoons when an event such as Ely Folk Festival provides you with a tasty real ale whilst a tuneful troubadour entertains us with folksy story songs as heard here. Elly (real name Helen Woodbridge) is a singer-songwriter based in Ipswich, Suffolk.

Ezio – The Same Mistake

One of the real underground national treasures of the Cambridge scene for more than thirty years now is indisputably Ezio Lunedei, accompanied, as he has been all along, by the guitar shredder extraordinaire Booga. Weirdly, I think his name may have always held him back, you just do not expect such west referencing singer-songwriter mastery to be coming from someone whose name implies their music will be Spanish holiday disco music (or something). Put simply, if a song like ‘The Same Mistake’ were written by a Neil Young or a Mike Scott it would be regarded as a classic piece of melancholic, country-tinged, song writing genius for that is exactly what this is. Furthermore, Ezio has an armoury of similarly fine songs spread across his whole back catalogue.

The Cain Pit – Devil’s Side

Finally for this half dozen festival taster selection I am flagging up some thrilling punky bluegrass action that will be gate crashing the festival proceedings on Saturday night. Heading down from the mean streets of Norwich, the band were formed during the pandemic by cousins Daryl and Scott Blyth before expanding to a five piece. Their distorted blend of frantic banjo picking, double bass thwacking and raw pounding drum beating energy has seen them described as ‘punkgrass’, an appropriately original description for a sound with a thoroughly enticing approach. If you have never got a tattoo, that might change after you see The Cain Pit!

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 27th June 2025

The Waterboys – When Ye Go Away

As it is Glastonbury weekend I thought it topical to share a few of the Fruit Tree Records Glastonbury favourites from over the years for this weeks vintage selection. The Waterboys are an act whose free flowing, boundary tumbling, questing romantic spirit have summed up the essence of Glastonbury over the decades and they are knitted into the fabric of the festivals history as well as my own back pages with the event. For it was in 1994 (my debut year as a Glastonbury attendee) that Mike Scott roamed the site, his Waterboys band not booked to play as the man himself was about to embark on a solo project gear change, but he made his presence felt all the same by popping up unannounced on at least two occasions playing old Waterboys classics, as here when he played with ex-Waterboy Sharon Shannon on a timeless masterpiece from the ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ album.

Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues

Another 1994 memory, this was probably the seed of the Sunday lunchtime main stage line-up position that would later be branded the ‘legends slot’. I remember clearly dozing with my friends in the Sunday afternoon sun wondering whether to bother sticking around for Johnny Cash then being absolutely floored by the mans sheer stage presence and star aura. I knew little of the man and his music before he came onstage, my musical education was about to get a serious injection.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand

If bands were to follow a guideline for guaranteed Glastonbury success it might say on page one play a hits set, this is not the place to audience test the new record that has not been released yet. Back in 1998 the current Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds release was a ‘best of’ compilation and so their festival set reflected this, although the legendary status of the performance might also be down to the band being at the very peak of their powers at this time. This would have been the occasion Nick Cave has spoken about where he met Bob Dylan backstage, receiving warm praise from the elder statesman for his musical output. There is no BBC film footage of the Dylan set, the nineties being a time when bigger names could opt out of television coverage.

R.E.M. – It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

R.E.M. came on the mainstage as headliners in 1999 with a point to prove. Their most recent album ‘Up’ had not performed as well as expected and so the initial statement that there would not be a tour around the album was revised and 1999 saw them return to the stage with punch and purpose. I do not have many memories of being down the front at gigs, my height normally sees me settling for a further back position, but this was one occasion where I felt the moment and was drawn closer to the source. R.E.M. are one of my top three all time favourite bands and this was one Glastonbury headline slot with everything I had hoped for, a legendary band seizing the moment and delivering the goods.

David Bowie – Rebel Rebel

If you were a TV viewer of the festival in the first ten years of TV coverage you were at the mercy of the broadcaster’s choice of stages and acts to cover. The iPlayer control that enables us all to explore and select as we would if attending was some way off and this was never more frustratingly felt, for me, than in 2000 when all us viewers were aware that David Bowie was playing a mouth watering headline slot on the main stage as we tuned in, but the BBC only offered us short excerpts from his set, no direct live broadcast as you would have reasonably expected. Instead they kept cutting to Bassment Jaxx on the other stage, an alternative selection that did not, could not, meet with the viewers expectations. The dance based duo looked like they knew this as well, appearing to be a little too crouched behind their mixing desk as their dancers took care of stage craft and the Jaxxees (as they would later be known thanks to Primal Scream) pepper sprayed us with generic bland dance toss. In the subsequent years Bowie’s set attained a near legendary status, if only the TV audience could have shared in that euphoria live in real time too.

The White Stripes – Hotel Yorba

The excitement that was exploding around the White Stripes at this time is, I think, tangibly captured in this Glastonbury performance of 2002. At a time when indie was starting to head for the landfill and dance was repetitively beating itself into a stupor, it took a stripped back duo playing the electric blues to ignite the scene with something fresh and vital. This TV exposure could have been the first time many in the UK caught a glimpse of Jack and Meg but they were ready to take you down by this stage, no questions asked

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 20th June 2025

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – Summertime

For this week’s half dozen vintage music selections I just had to opt for a summer theme what with the heatwave that is currently bathing the UK in a hot, bright, sticky, perspiring glow. My opening jump back is a jazz standard taken from the Porgy & Bess musical as performed here by a pair of the genres 20th century masters and OK, the video may not sync with the recording but sometimes, as is the case here, the song cannot be omitted simply because I cannot find a bit of film archive.

The Surfaris – Wipe Out

For me the optimum sound of summer, in the same way that the ultimate sound of Christmas will always be heard in the production of Phil Spector’s Christmas album, is surf music. This instrumental from 1963 is one of the best, that wave riding electric guitar twang just does not ring quite the same in the winter months, this is the kind of sizzling hot playing that could send even the non-swimmers out there diving for the rolling waves atop a surf board.

Bedazzled – Summer Song

Back in the 1990s ‘Landfill Indie’ (the necessary catch all term coined by the music press in the 2010’s to lump together all the uninspired guitar posing bands yelping their generic uninspired toss into a bucket) was not a thing, in fact many lower league indie bands were churning out little bittersweet guitar pop nuggets such as this summer-themed gem, from the soon to be forgotten and barely even registering at the time but no less worthy and ripe for rediscovery, Bedazzled.

The Duckworth Lewis Method – The Age Of Revolution

I grew up with the increasingly outdated idea that football was the winter sport and cricket the summer. Now that football has crept into the summer months too these seasonal dividing lines are all but obsolete but cricket remains, in the UK and a few other (but not enough) countries, synonymous with the warmer months. How wonderful was it that a band specifically dedicating their entire musical output in honour of the sport should arrive? Especially as the creative figureheads were supreme songsmiths from other guises, namely the Divine Comedy and the criminally under-rated Pugwash. This is a full and direct inswinger that definitively hits the stumps.

Ben Folds Five – Where’s Summer B?

This one is presented as a lo-fi filmed clip but if you are unfamiliar with the original version on the Ben Folds Five debut album I urge you to check out this aching, Billy Joel style, peach of a song. Sometimes, the juxtaposition of a yearning lyric with a warm summery sound can hit the senses hard, this great summer song is one such example.

Bruce Springsteen – Girls In Their Summer Clothes

It is not as if I was previously unaware but I have to admit, over the past month I have been taking a real deep dive into the masterful songwriting of Bruce Springsteen. I know he is a massive mainstream artist but I do believe he remains a little under-rated, at least in terms of how great a writer and performer he as always been. This summer song is a case in point, rarely listed as one of his classics but how often do pop/rock songs convey in lyric and tone exactly what they want to say as devastating and potently as this? Not often enough, this is one of genuinely hundreds of prefect songs that has risen from the hand of Bruce Springsteen.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 13th June 2025

Brian Wilson – I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times

How could this weeks vintage selection of tunes be anything other than a toast to those who are gone in 2025 following a handful of days when the world has lost the genius of Brian Wilson and Sly Stone? Brian may have shone brightest in the sixties when he was still in full command of his natural, musically articulate, talent and imagination but that has long since proven to be a light that will never go out, such was the indelible impact of the sounds he created. There were few contemporaries that The Beatles acknowledged a competitive, respectful empathy towards but, alongside Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson was undoubtedly a prime source of peer group inspiration and his loss to the world of music will only begin to be appreciated now the book is finally closed on his life’s work.

Sly & The Family Stone – Dance To The Music

Lost to the world the same week, another iconic performer and visionary whose period at the top of his game was frustratingly brief. However, the fusion of soul and R&B that kicked the doors of funk down to the ground, not to mention the ahead-of-the-game multi-cultural ethos pounded relentlessly by the Sly Stone led Family Stone surely paved the way for everything soul and electro became over the ensuing fifty years; that funky train cannot be stopped and will never be silenced.

Marianne Faithfull – Vagabond Ways

Most of the obituaries for Marianne focused on her orthodoxy shaking breakthrough in the sixties and her not always so clean-cut connections to the Rolling Stones, it is worth remembering however that she never let go of music as a creative, expressive outlet. Indeed on cuts like this one from 1999, she did a lot to reinforce her perceived public image with songs of this ilk that only served to add to the legend.

Max Romeo – Wet Dream

Arguably the greatest thing about Max Romeo’s classic ‘Wet Dream’ from 1969 was Max’s attempts to explain the clean, innocent meaning of the song years later. You see, according to Max the song had nothing to do with sex and the chorus line “lie down girl let me push it up, push it up” were merely an instruction to his female companion to take cover while he pushed his finger to the ceiling to repair a leaking roof. I’m in full agreement with Max, the song could have been about no other scenario.

Roberta Flack – Compared To What

Her two massive hits ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ and ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ quite rightly dominated the reverential chat and legacy surrounding Roberta but there was a lot more to admire in this piano pounding, gospel infused, soul powerhouse as this clip of her tearing into the opening track on her debut album surely attests.

Bill Fay – The Never Ending Happening

Bill received a welcome and deserved late career resurrection in which his mellow, richly detailed songwriting enjoyed a 21st century renaissance, a second coming that is all to rare in the music industry. That said, he remains one of the big names among the record collecting community thanks to the scarcity and £100+ rated value of his 1967 Deram label b-side ‘Screams In The Ears’ which has enough timelessness to indelibly stand as one of the essential slices of freakbeat period British psychedelia.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 5th June 2025

Pentangle – Travelling Song

The favourite new album release at Fruit Tree Records this week is the Lavinia Blackwall ‘The Making’ record and so, in honour of its acid-folk splendour, here are another half dozen cherries of a similar ilk picked from that late 60s/early 70s period that Lavinia draws so much inspiration from. Top of the pile are Pentangle whose magnificent melange of influences created music that was a fusion of jazz and folk with a worldly wise outlook that transcends the era in which it is forever connected.

Fotheringay – Too Much Of Nothing

Sandy Denny’s first post-Fairport Convention project was this band, Fotheringay, who were only around long enough to release one album in their lifetime. Consequently, film footage is scarce which makes the excellent colour quality of this clip even more special. Undoubtedly it was Sandy who was the star presence in this combo and personally, I would pick her ‘Nothing More’ composition about former Fairport colleague Richard Thompson as the real standout track but this version of a Bob Dylan tune, taken from his at the time unreleased ‘Basement Tapes’, is a fine take with Trevor Lucas on lead vocals.

The Incredible String Band – Painting Box

The Incredibles were the most psychedelic of all the acid-folk brigade, both in terms of their multi-coloured sartorial elegance, the far-out nature of their approach and the apparent full embracing of hippie ideals and lifestyle. Their music too could stretch and weave way beyond all normal boundaries of song structure, occasionally flying close to the brink of collapse but always somehow magically holding together to form something unique, confusing and often beautiful. This is one of their lovelier melodic moments, performed with Julie Felix on her TV show, of a track that featured on the 1967 LP ‘The Five Thousand Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion’.

Renaissance – Can You Understand?

If the Incredibles represented the more psych end of the acid-folk spectrum then Renaissance leaned towards an exploration of the classical elements in their sound, especially as they were in the first few years of their existence. The original line-up featured two former members of the Yardbirds, Jim McCarty and Keith Relf alongside Keith’s sister Jane on vocals. However, for Renaissance, it would only be after wholesale personnel changes, including the introduction of Annie Haslem on vocals as featured here, that would push them to wider recognition and chart success, most notably on ‘Northern Lights’, a massive hit later in the decade.

Magnet – Willow’s Song

Perhaps the defining song of the whole acid-folk movement of the era, this was played and recorded by a band who were not really a band at all in the truest sense, more like a group of musicians assembled for the purpose of recording the soundtrack to the 1973 dark cult classic film ‘The Wicker Man’. Starring Edward Woodward and Britt Ekland, it is remembered for its use in an erotic scene where Ekland’s character Willow sings to Woodward’s Neil Howie seductively through the wall of an adjacent room. The music for the film was actually arranged, scored and partly composed by Paul Giovanni.

Richard & Linda Thompson – I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight

Richard & Linda’s 1974 album of the same name is one of the essential releases in UK folk-rock of any period, not just the early seventies. The live TV clip here is admittedly not a patch on the original studio version but film footage of the duo is not exactly in plentiful supply and therefore is offered up as the features are about showing performances, where possible, as much as hearing them. The song is about as upbeat as the pair would ever get whilst still retaining some of Richard’s trademark doom, even if it is merely in the sense that this night on the tiles is bound to have a messy ending. My first introduction to their work came in 1999 when John Peel played this song on the radio, continuing to say something along the lines of “anybody interested in music should listen to Richard Thompson”. Well, yes indeed!

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 30th May 2025

Supergrass – Lenny

It feels like there is a lot of Britpop nostalgia in the air right now, what with the really creditable return of Pulp, the upcoming Oasis reunion concerts and frequent references to 30th anniversary landmarks of notable 1995 Britpop releases. The Supergrass debut album is one that I have repeatedly heard included in the conversation these past few days and quite rightly so, it really did seem to cement the notion that something was happening with all these guitar bands enjoying high profile pop chart hits. Guitar bands of the indie scene were clearly nothing new in 1995, but it can be argued the other high flyers were tangibly born out of other movements. Blur were riding on the coat tails of indie-dance and shoegaze in 1991, Oasis were indisputably indebted to the flowery end of the Madchester scene of Stone Roses with a sprinkle of Merseyside throwbacks The La’s whilst Suede had burst onto the weekly music press radar in 1992 on the back of a seventies Bowie and Roxy Music aesthetic. Supergrass, on the other hand, arrived at the moment Britpop was starting to become recognised as a movement, seemingly tailor made to fulfil the mission drive as being set out by Damon Albarn and Noel Gallagher. They were a young vibrant band, with a classic sixties inspired cartoon image, who were also a tight playing unit writing their own earworm ready songs with a one-way ticket to the top of the singles chart. That debut album, ‘I Should Coco,’ has not aged one bit and the Deep Purple referencing of this underplayed classic alone shows what a serious proposition they were both when they arrived then as they evolved…

Dodgy – Water Under The Bridge

A look back at the Britpop years does tend to throw up a number of also rans that give the impression the scene overall was not that inspiring. Personally, I don’t need to revisit the work of Menswear or Gene but isn’t that the way with every movement? By that measure, there are also a multitude of acts who put out amazing quality work that have unjustifiably faded from view. Dodgy hit big in 1996 with the oh-so catchy ‘Good Enough’ but they had been furnishing the British pop landscape with impossibly lush offerings for a few years before that. This tune from 1993 more than adequately demonstrates Dodgy’s long standing mastery of major/minor melodic magnificence…

Edwyn Collins – A Girl Like You

History dictates that the shining lights of Britpop were all artists making their breakthrough in the 1990’s but in reality, there were a quite a few acts contributing to this wave of retro sounding pop chart action who had enjoyed success in previous decades. Paul Weller, Suggs and Terry Hall are all fine examples of names who enjoyed a raised profile with their own music on the back of Britpop appropriate releases (it is not unreasonable to suggest Paul Weller’s ‘Stanley Road’ is one of the classic albums of the whole movement, especially with that Mod classic Peter Blake album art) but arguably the most enduring single with instant whip echoes of the period is this little wonder by Edwyn Collins. Edwyn was best known as the singer with early eighties indie darlings Orange Juice but this 1995 marvel, complete with gizmo flexing guitar riffage, successfully repositioned him as a solo attraction and probably, all things considered, remains his best loved song…

The Lemon Trees – Let It Loose

The other thing that Britpop raking turns up is a very real impression that there are multitude of undiscovered rock/pop nuggets waiting for an enterprising compiler. This would definitely be one, a tune that pushes every guitar pop band button with assured competence, something that is probably not surprising when you consider that the lead singer here, Guy Chambers, was the man mainly behind all the musical hit landmarks Robbie Williams would enjoy towards the end of the decade. Here however, the ex-World Party sideman had to settle for the artistic satisfaction of creating a great indie pop tune without the hit single status and widespread acclaim…

Edward Ball – The Mill Hill Self Hate Club

Ed Ball was a member of the Television Personalities and The Times as well as a number of other fairly under-the-radar acts in the eighties and nineties who had his profile, comparatively, raised with the endorsement of Alan McGee’s Creation Records and some proactive publicising of Ed’s solo work during the peak of the Britpop era. This one is especially resonant with its mentioning of London locales and a video that includes cameos from McGee himself and one of the few Premier League footballers known to be a lover of indie bands, Graeme Le Saux. Above all though, ‘The Mill Hill Self Hate Club’ was a top level bluesy, folk-rocking pop tune that deserved a brighter day in the sun…

The Wonder Stuff – The Size Of A Cow

The great myth that has grown about Britpop is that it was born out of Suede and Blur deliberately making records that sounded undeniably like works by classic British bands of the previous three decades around 1992 and 1993 before the journalist Stuart Maconie coined the phrase in an article in the British music press. This does not stand up to a deeper scrutiny as my final selection more than adequately demonstrates, for here are the Wonder Stuff brilliantly doing Britpop before Britpop in 1991 (with a top ten pop tune shamelessly referencing British pop greats like Slade, Madness and The Jam). Not only that but revisit the pages of the NME and Melody Maker in 1991 and you will easily find journalists describing what the Stuffies were doing as Britpop, so it is clear the idea and the template had been floating around for a few years before the more enterprising commentators put a stamp on it. The only thing missing with the Wonder Stuff was the look, they still favoured the shaggy haired grebo image here but everything else is in place. I fondly recall the Wonder Stuff lighting up the pop landscape in 1991 and regretted that they really had no interest in following through by playing the commercial game. Mike Scott’s Waterboys had their biggest pop success too that spring with a re-released ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ and he too resisted any demands to comply with publicity and promotion campaigns the marketing department pushed for, he like the Wonder Stuff held firm to his deference to the artistic integrity of the music. This is the primary difference between them and the Britpop generation that followed, as soon as Noel Gallagher had a voice the idea of aggressively pushing for the top became accepted, old fashioned indie speak of the “we like it and if anyone else does it’s a bonus” variety was consigned to history. Still, at least the Wonder Stuff made some undeniable ahead of its time Britpop, like this…!

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 23rd May 2025

Bob Dylan – Not Dark Yet

Bob Dylan is arguably the greatest living songwriter on the planet, only Paul McCartney could have a shout at being as culturally significant, and this week marks Bob’s 84th birthday so this weeks half dozen older song selection is a Dylan celebration in honour of his enduring career. This tired, forlorn and reflective song is a real beauty from an LP, 1997’s ‘Time Out Of Mind’, that I frequently conclude and fight a corner for being the greatest of Dylan’s entire back catalogue. It maybe lacks the cultural impact of his famous mid sixties releases but as a collection of songs it is thematically and sonically extremely satisfying and pulls you in for a rewarding return visit again and again…

Jeff Tweedy – Simple Twist Of Fate

Jeff is one of the great US songwriters of our time too, particularly for his timeless music as the lead singer of Americana lynchpins Wilco, and he approaches his version of this Dylan with understanding and emotiveness as if the song were his own. He digs deep and gets lost inside this lyric originally from a Dylan album, ‘Blood On The Tracks’, that mediated on the subject of relationships, divorce, heartbreak and separation with a depth and 20/20 eye that few have equalled before or since…

Joan Baez – Love Is Just A Four Letter Word

Ever since Joan played this song to camera in the extensive Dylan documentary ‘No Direction Home’ it has been associated with her romantic connection to Bob that briefly bloomed in the sixties and evolved into legend when she wrote about it on her own ‘Diamonds And Rust’ in the seventies. The brilliant story around this song is that Joan was around Bob when he spontaneously made it up then, playing it back to him at a later date, he enquired “that’s pretty good, who wrote it?”. “You did, you dope” she replied before claiming it as part of her own repertoire from there on in…

Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel

There is a similar story to the Joan Baez tune with this one, the connection being it is an act picking up on one of Dylan’s discarded scraps and turning it into one of the most popular tunes in their own catalogue. This time Old Crow Medicine Show picked up on a fragment of a tune called ‘Wagon Wheel’ that surfaced on a bootleg record taken from studio sessions around 1973. They wrote to Bob and asked for permission to finish the tune off, although if you manage to hear the source material it is clear the song was pretty much all there already, to which they received a positive reply and away they went, delighting crowds with their wagon wheeling ever since…

Lou Reed – Foot Of Pride

Lou Reed and Bob Dylan today seem a natural fit as writers and performers thanks to their masterful capacity for poetic lyrics and the strong individualistic personality of their singing styles. Their paths rarely crossed though, but Dylan did go through a period in the 1980s when he was very vocal about his admiration for Lou, especially in the liner notes for his 1985 ‘Biograph’ box set when he set Reed was one of very few modern artists he had any time for. Lou returned the compliment here, at Dylan’s 1992 Madison Square Garden all star tribute concert, with a spinning rock mass rendition of a song that had first appeared the previous year on Dylan’s very first Bootleg Series box set release…

Timothee Chalamet – Outlaw Blues / Three Angels

The grand service Chalamet has done to promote the Dylan legend with his incredible biopic portrayal of the great mans early years cannot be understated. However, even more delight should be derived from the way he has played Bob Dylan material, not only in the film ‘A Complete Unknown’ but when promoting it as he did here live on US TV. Timothee played a brace of deep cuts too, no mere imitation, no stars in their eyes karaoke, nothing played with a knowing nod and a wink to the audience; no Chalamet did exactly what Bob himself would have done, he played the songs exactly how he felt them and in doing so made them his own.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 16th May 2025

The Renegades – Thirteen Women

It’s a sixties garage rock themed half dozen track selections this week beginning with this, a raucous and still ever-so-slightly cheesy version of a song that, up to that point, was maybe best known as a Bill Haley b-side. It has a special place in my garage rock heart for it was a routine enquiry about this tune, being played by a dealer at a Record Fair, that led to him giving me a cassette tape compilation he’d made of similar tracks which proved to be my gateway to a lifetime of sixties garage and psych collecting. I think it might have been that little keyboard riff that hooked me in with this one? The Renegades were from Birmingham but had their biggest success in Finland and they are just one of hundreds of under-the-radar Beatles / Stones inspired bands from the era who put out killer 45s…. (more to follow, but first)…

The Sonics – Strychnine

This, now legendary in the right circles, band from Tacoma, Washington, produced a raw and ragged, totally aggressive sound that was punk by any other name. Their debut album ‘Here Are The Sonics’ seems so ahead of its time for a 1964 release with singer / main songwriter Gerry Roslie attacking his vocals with a pure venom that must have sent a lightning jolt through any of the middle America populace that encountered this at the time. Original film material is scarce but I am good with this later clip from The Sonics 21st century reformation; if nothing else, the gig they played in London sometime around 2008 remains one of my all time definitive life-affirming gigs…

The Lemon Drops – I live In The Springtime

Chicago’s The Lemon Drops only issued one 45 in 1967 but, despite that, they still managed to release more incredible singles than Spandau Ballet and Heaven 17 combined (in my opinion). In fact this rather delicious fuzzy guitar explosion of sound on the Rembrandt label was something of a curio in its own right because there was a version released, which was actually the more common, or at least more frequently heard version, that was issued as a mix without the bass and drums. The track presented here has the full mix although weirdly the edition without the full range of instruments remains satisfyingly hypnotic and glows with a dawn-of-summer hazy warmth. Just goes to show what a good song it is then doesn’t it?

The Smoke – My Friend Jack

The Smoke were an English psych band from York who played with a pure garage energy and it is indeed a treat to find some film footage of them that captures the Mod edge in their style. This one was an outstanding 1967 45 that effectively bottles the spirit of the period; inevitably it was banned by the BBC and therefore received very limited exposure. Sometimes the British institution could be a little too trigger happy with their black listings, a mere hint of a drug reference needlessly halting a promising tune at birth, but here I suppose you have to admit the lyric goes beyond a vague suggestion of chemical stimulants. At least they had a number 2 hit in Germany though, a great single will always find a way eventually…

Rupert’s People – Dream On My Mind

It is hard to definitively define who Rupert’s People really were or who they were supposed to be. Songwriter Rod Lynton’s original band, the Extraverts, had split but he gained a management contract as part of a new act called Sweet Feeling at which point an acetate, including a song called Charles Brown, was advised to be re-written to the tune of Air on a G String, reflecting the classical ambitions acts like Procol Harum and the Moody Blues were flexing successfully at the time. The band Les Fleur de Lys were involved in the recording but then backed out necessitating the formation of a new group for Lynton’s work, which is where Rupert’s People arrive. By the time of this track they were deep diving into the flowery, childhood memory referencing psychedelia stylings of the period which, bizarrely, left a groovy little psych-rocker like this languishing as a 1967 b-side…

Ty Wagner – I’m A No Count

This was one of only two 45s that fell under the garage umbrella issued by Wagner, ‘I’m A No Count’ being the first from 1966 on the Chattahoochee label. It is an out-and-out sleazy and scuzzy outsider bluesy rock classic; no wonder Jon Spencer was happy to showcase Ty on the, actually quite recent, clip below. What I love about this is how Ty comes across as completely and utterly the cool real deal, he does not break into a smile even for a split second! If you enjoy this you need to check out the original recording (it’s findable, as most things are online nowadays) but for now, let me sign off this weeks dig into the audio / visual archives with a performance that is about as real as you can get…

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 9th May 2025

Ivor Cutler – Shoplifters

One of the true British eccentrics of the twentieth century, Ivor Cutler could make records that seemed primitive and childlike in their execution but somehow snuck some depth in through the back door of your mind and could have you think about things in a whole new way. He would mostly accompany himself on harmonium, as seen in this clip, and was beloved by the late night outposts of BBC radio, in fact his radio appearances from the late fifties right through to regular appearances on the John Peel Radio One show probably leant him a relevance that his actual record sales may never have afforded him. I give his work some time whenever I come across it…

The Easybeats – Friday On My Mind

If you think talk about pop music being better in the sixties is all just a bit overblown then try and argue against the merits of a track like this. From 1966, these were an Australian beat group who scored big in the charts with one of the most piledriving, adrenalin fuelled, pop rockers imaginable and underneath it all they wrote a great song, with all due consideration given to structure, melody and dynamic punch. Wow! Fab! Groovy! Yeah, I love sixties pop…

Bob Wills – Take Me Back To Tulsa

It’s all about the sound, all about the western swing and the hard to resist rhythm. This is what country was defined by in the forties and fifties when the genre still had its rough and ready roots fully visible. The vocalist here is Luke Wills while bandleader Bob is easily identifiable as he’s the one with the unexpectedly high pitched voice who frequently calls out between the verses. Some ears find Bob Wills a bit much on his recordings because he could not stop calling out, mostly without any need, the music was uplifting and infectious enough in itself, he did not need to whip it up and solicit the attention quite as much as this, but then you could argue that the band would not have been quite so well drilled without his exacting standards…

Albert Lee – Tear It Up

Not that anyone should need convincing about the guitar playing and authenticity of Albert Lee but here is some undeniable evidence of his genius anyway. It was said by a favourite radio DJ of mine once that Rock n Roll is basically just Country music played faster and while that generalisation fails to account for the evolutions in Rock music that would explode in the sixties and seventies, there is an essentially correct element to the roots of the statement. And with a performance like this, it is roots that Albert Lee is working with, ‘Tear It Up’ is a ripper of a performance that pulls in original seeds of country, bluegrass and rockabilly and boils it all up into a barnstorm of raw and ready musical delight… tear it up!

Blossom Dearie – 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)

Blossom, seen here performing on the David Frost show in 1971, could so easily be written about as though she were a contemporary and equal in talent to someone like Nina Simone. She was a fine pianist who rarely showed off her true prowess and a warm, sincere interpreter of popular songs of the day who could pull in a jazzier element without losing touch with the songs soul. She was a demanding performer too who would not settle for anything less than the exact playing conditions she required, so photographers, chatters and smokers would be challenged without room for compromise. But Blossom was a very different beast to Nina, with her childlike voice, grandmotherly warmth and fondness for the twee (as heard here). But a phenomenal talent more than capable of a heart-wrenching performance and an ability to capture both innocence and refinement in the same breath…

Paul Simon – American Tune

So let’s finish this week with a classic selection from the writer of the previous tune. Paul Simon’s ‘American Tune’, heard here in a fifty year old TV performance, sounds like a prayer for America as much as its a weary lament. The sad thing is he could have written it last year as there are lines in there that still retain that level of contemporary relevance. I guess that does at least go to show what a genius songwriter Simon has always been, that a tune like this, which was probably thinking about Watergate and Vietnam, was written with such universal, ageless language that it can still work today. His guitar playing is pretty tasty too, something that maybe gets overlooked a little too much.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 2nd May 2025

Genesis – The Musical Box

As a new feature for this website and as a companion piece for the half a dozen Fresh Juice offerings of new music, Old Fruit is a selection of half a dozen older music clips presented here because they either have some current relevance, they are newly discovered archive material or simply that I just like them a lot and want to share. As is the case with this super high quality picture of Genesis in 1974, performing their epic ‘Musical Box’ number for the TV cameras, capturing Peter Gabriel in a moment where his theatrical stage craft was perfectly pitched. It is fair to say that by the end of 1974 his ideas were over stretching a little and fellow band members would complain that costumes and the focus on visuals were over shadowing the music. But equally, they probably would not have won the attention they enjoyed in the early part of the seventies without Gabriel’s weird aura but whatever, it retains a curious eccentric English charm on show to full effect here…

Crowded House – Distant Sun

There have been many songwriters who benefit from comparisons to either Lennon or McCartney but its the ones that get favourable mentions in the same breath as Lennon & McCartney that are the ones to pay special attention to. Neil Finn of Crowded House is one such performer and he has written many hit singles, some like ‘Weather With You’ or ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ shine brightly but ‘Distant Sun’ is truly one of the best even though it slides a little under the radar by comparison. The way it pulls in a spoonful of McCartney melodicism and sprinkles a pinch of Lennon angst is really quite powerful…

The Roches – Mr. Sellack

This three sibling combo were, especially during the eighties, one of the most vital acts on the folk scene. They released albums, some of which (including the 1979 self-titled release that this song is taken from) were produced by Robert Fripp, that would almost unanimously get healthy critical receptions but underwhelm in terms of sales. A travesty really for, as this clip so vividly demonstrates, they were capable of hitting spectacular three part ranges vocally and their songs had a natural lyrical flare, wit and bite. The Roches were a folkin’ phenomenon alright…

Question Mark & The Mysterians – 96 Tears

Question Mark was the stage alter ego of Rudy Martinez and his band, also named after a 1957 Japanese science fiction film of the same name, scored a US number one hit with this their debut single released on the Pa-Go-Go Records label. It has equally been identified as an early influence on the punk scene as much as it has been associated with the Nuggets driven garage rock scene that, like Northern Soul, would start to catch an identity for its genre only when compilations started putting together similarly styled collections under the ‘garage’ banner in the seventies and beyond. Unlike many records that would become garage and psych collectables, this one was actually pretty popular and well known so it has remained an outlier, never appearing on the ‘Nuggets’ series for example. Whatever, it’s a garage psych classic from 1966 so just dig it!

Link Wray – Rumble

Sadly there is no actual 1958 footage that I can find of Link Wray performing his instrumental classic the year it came out, but this 1974 live clip is still pretty amazing. The thunderous crash that introduced this number originally lays to waste any claim sixties acts like The Kinks or Led Zeppelin can make to having invented Heavy Metal, it was already there in the aggressive playing and amped up grungy sound of Link Wray. And look at this film, witness that gum chewing strut, he knew it too!

Roberta Flack – Compared To What

This was the first track on the debut album by Roberta Flack and talk about a statement of intent. Obviously she would end her career with a pair of classic songs that she’ll forever be associated with but this one, for me, best brings the essence of Roberta. It is a sensational fusion of jazz, funk and soul and where the lyric talks of making it real, well look no further, it is all in this piece of film from 1970. Eyes shut, head swaying, totally lost and transported in the performance and the song, it does not get any more real than this!

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